


In Space No One Can Hear You Mop

by decadent_mousse



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Blood and Gore, Golf, Horror, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:53:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadent_mousse/pseuds/decadent_mousse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann and Newt are janitors sent to a derelict ship to clean things up after a group of aliens massacred the entire crew... but are they the only ones on board?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Space No One Can Hear You Mop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [patster223](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/gifts).



> This AU is loosely based on the video game [Viscera Cleanup Detail](http://store.steampowered.com/app/246900/), which is one of the most hilarious computer games I've ever had the privilege to play, let me tell you. So, naturally, a new AU was born. Also many thanks to [patster223](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223), who basically poured gasoline on this fire and played a big role in me deciding to actually write it!

“This is just a routine job.”

“I hate routine jobs.”

“Be that as it may, routine jobs are what make us _money_ , Newton.  With minimal chance of us dying in the process, which I find rather advantageous.”

“I find making more than minimum wage advantageous, but that’s just me.”

Newt ignored the dirty look Hermann shot in his direction and set the shuttle’s autopilot to docking mode.  “Alright, time to suit up and give our new mops a test drive.”

“I can’t wait,” Hermann replied, sounding about as thrilled as a parent helping out during a school field trip.

~

The bathroom stall creaked open ominously.  Newt stepped inside and looked around.  The walls were splattered with blood that hadn’t finished drying yet.  There were a few smears that looked like they might’ve been made with human hands, and a few that looked like they might’ve been made by… not-so-human hands.  None of that mess, though, compared to the toilet.  Blood, water, and who even knew what else was still actively trickling from the cracked porcelain of the toilet bowl.  The lid was down, with bloody fingerprints along the edges.

He reached down and lifted it open.  There was something in there, he could see the outline of it.  Something solid.  His instinct was to flush, but it looked like someone had tried that already.  The toilet was making a soft running sound, the handle was bent in a way no human could probably bend a metal lever, and the toilet probably would’ve flooded if it hadn’t been leaking from the cracked side.

He flipped the lid open all the way and took a closer look.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.  

Carefully, he reached into the toilet with a glove-covered hand and pulled out… another hand.  Only gloveless.  Also kind of armless.

He stared at it few seconds, then laughed.  “What kind of idiot tries to flush a _hand_ down the toilet?  Seriously?”

He shook his head before tossing the hand into the garbage bag at his side.  

“Probably somebody who’s never used a toilet before,” Hermann’s voice crackled dryly in his ear.

“Dude, it doesn’t take experience with human technology to know something that big is not going to fit down a hole that small, c’mon.  That’s just common sense.”

“I doubt a race of large insectoids has much in the way of common sense.”

“Wow, that’s really speciest of you, Hermann.  Just because they were bugs doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been intelligent, y’know.”

“They all died off when they decided to drink the waste product from the ship’s drive-core because it was an attractive shade of green.”

“Oh.”

“At any rate, I’m nearly finished in the captain’s quarters.  What is your status?”

“Grossed out, amused, and probably around… uh… seventy-five percent done with both bathrooms down here.  Was there anything else on this deck we needed to tackle?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Eh, I’ll do another sweep, just to make sure.  It’s not like I have anything better to do.  We’ve got, like–” he glanced at the time up in the corner of his goggles’ HUD, “–another hour before we were scheduled to finish.  Might as well rake in a little extra money.”

“By pretending there’s more to do here than there actually was.”  He didn’t have to see Hermann’s face, he could _hear_ the disapproving look.

“Oh, don’t get all high and mighty with me, man.  The pay for this gig was already pretty bad – if we head back early, it’ll barely be worth the money for the fuel we spent coming out here.  Might as well pull out our pay cards and set them on fire while we’re at it.”

“I thought it was all about ‘learning more about alien races,’ not about money.”

Newt snorted.  “It _is_ , but I’d still like to eat something other than ramen noodles sometime this month.  The company can afford all the ship fuel to send us out all the time, but they can’t pay us enough to eat so we don’t shrivel up like those zombie things on Theta 8 a couple weeks ago?”

There was a long pause, and he would’ve thought their radios had cut out, except he could hear Hermann breathing on the other end.

“What ‘zombie things on Theta 8?’  You said you went _miniature golfing_ two weeks ago.”

Oops.

“Look, it was for your own good.   _I_ know and _you_ know how you get around zombies.  Remember that one time–”

“Yes, I remember.”

“We spent more time cleaning up your barf than we spent cleaning up the leftovers.”

“So you went _alone_?”

“It’s not like I was trying to edge you out!”

“I’m not upset about the _money_ , Newton.  I am upset about the fact that you went galavanting around a station full of zombies by _yourself_.”

“All the zombies were dead by then, dude!  I mean, they were dead to begin with, but y’know… dead-er.”

“You know as well as I do that there is no reliable way to know for _certain_ that a zombie threat has been fully eradicated.”

“You’re mad.”  It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact, because they’d known each other for about five years now, Newt could tell when Hermann Gottlieb was mad.  

“Mad?  I’m _furious_.”

Okay, Newt could tell when he was furious, too.  It wasn’t that different from “mad” only it was, weirdly, quieter.  

“How can I make it up to you?”

Dead silence.

“C’mon, don’t give me the silent treatment, Hermann.”

Still no response.

Newt sighed and started scrubbing the blood off the bathroom walls.

~

By the time Newt reached their rendezvous point by the elevator on that deck, _he_ was angry.  Who the hell did Hermann think he was?  Newt didn’t need a babysitter, and he wasn’t under some contractual obligation to take Hermann with him on _every_ job.  On top of that, he’d been trying to do Hermann a favor!  The guy _hated_ zombies – hell, Newt wasn’t too fond of them either, but at least he didn’t get actually physically ill dealing with them, he could handle it.  

Hermann would’ve been able to handle it, too, but not without puking his guts out before, during, and after.  It wasn’t even about the extra mess, Newt had just wanted to spare him the misery.  Hermann wouldn’t have said no to the job, zombies or no zombies.  Hell, there was a “NO ZOMBIES” box they could check off in their employee files, but Hermann would never check it.  He never said no to a job, he never complained, he just went in and did the job no matter how physically or mentally taxing it was.

And he called _Newt_ reckless.

Wow, he was going to give that guy a piece of his mind when he got there.  

...Where _was_ Hermann, anyway?

Newt glanced at the time again.  It was about fifteen minutes past when they were supposed to meet up and head back to the docking port and go home.  If it had been anybody else, he wouldn’t have been too worried, but this was Hermann.  Hermann had never been one of those “shows up to the derelict crew quarters fifteen minutes late with Starbucks” kind of people.

He leaned back against the wall beside the elevator doors.  If he listened close, he could swear he heard some sort of skittering, scraping noise against the durasteel floor…

_The atmosphere of this place is getting to you, that’s all.  Probably just the hull creaking, and Hermann’s_ probably _on his way._

But what if he wasn’t?  What if not all those insectoid aliens had died?  What if one was still on the ship?  What if Hermann was hurt somewhere, being held captive by one of those things, while Newt was just standing around?

Newt fiddled with his radio feed.  “Hermann?”

Still silence.

He licked his lips and tried again.  “Hermann?  Buddy?  Are you there?”

Still nothing.

“Shit.  Oh god, shit.”

He ran his hands through his hair and pushed away from the wall.  Okay, he could handle this.  He _had_ to handle this.  Even if he called for help – even if corporate _sent_ help, which was a pretty big if – it’d be at least another couple of hours before they got there.  If Hermann _was_ in trouble, that wasn’t going to be soon enough.  Newt was on his own.  Hermann was counting on him.

He gripped his mop.  As far as improvised weapons went, it was, well, it was a friggin’ _mop_ , but if he swung it hard enough he was pretty sure he could do some damage.  Probably nothing lethal, but with a little luck it’d buy him enough time to rescue Hermann and get away while the alien – God, he really hoped there wasn’t more than one – nursed a head wound.

He moved down the corridor as quietly as he could.  Every squeak of his boots sounded like it echoed throughout the whole damn ship, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about that with cheap rubber soles.

Every once in awhile he heard what sounded like someone else’s footsteps, but every time he stopped they stopped.  Either it was just the echo of his own footsteps or someone – or something – was screwing with him.  Heart pounding, he continued to creep down the corridor.  Every time he went around a corner, he gripped his mop a little tighter and expected to come face to face with some horrifying alien.

Newt was all for trying to resolve interspecies conflicts peacefully, but he doubted these guys were going to listen to reason.  Hermann had said it himself, these guys weren’t exactly known for their brains.  

God, how many times had they heard about some other employee biting the big one on some unlucky cleanup job.  He never figured it’d ever happen to either of them.  That’s how these things went, though, right?  Nobody ever went into a job expecting to be the unlucky guy who gets eaten by leftover aliens.  Or zombies.

Okay, Hermann might’ve had a point about the zombies.  Newt would be totally fine with letting Hermann yell at him about it more if it meant finding him alive and in one piece.

What if he was already dead?  They’d both seen what was left of the crew when the aliens were done with them.  The aliens didn’t really take prisoners.  What if–

_Knock it off,_ he scolded himself.

Besides, it wasn’t like Hermann was completely helpless.  Combat wasn’t really either of their fortes, but Hermann was a smart guy and he could hold his own when he needed to.  You didn’t get to be a veteran janitor in some of the nastiest areas of space without knowing how to take care of yourself at least a little bit.

That’s what he kept telling himself, anyway.  He couldn’t let himself think about any of the alternatives.

He resisted the urge to call out Hermann’s name.  He probably wasn’t in any condition to respond, anyway, and it’d just give away his position.  He wouldn’t do Hermann much good if _he_ got caught, too.  

_Squeak.  Squeak, squeak.  Squeak._

Okay, there was definitely _something_ else walking through the corridors other than just him.  That was a whole separate noise from his own footsteps, and this time they kept going even when he stopped – and they sounded like they were getting closer.  It was almost a kind of wet sound.  Did these bug guys have feet or some kind of tentacles?  He hadn’t found an intact enough body to notice earlier.

He took a deep breath and rounded the corner.  Before he could lift his mop in defense, a dark shadow fell over him.

“Gah!” Newt yelled, leaping backwards and nearly tripping over his mop, which was apparently more of a danger to _him_ than any bug-aliens.  Shit, they’d be on him before he had time to get–

“Newton?”

_Wait a minute…_

“Hermann?!”

“What in God’s name–”

“Dude, where were you?”

“Ah.”  Hermann looked mildly embarrassed.  “The door to the navigator’s quarters jammed.  With me still inside.  It took me awhile to get it operational again.”

Newt gaped at him.

“Whatever clever remark you’re preparing, it can wait until we get off this godforsaken–”

Newt lunged forward and wrapped his arms around him.  

“Newton–”

He pressed his face into his shoulder.  “I thought you’d been kidnapped by aliens, dude.”

“I– _what_?”

“Or eaten.  I thought– I thought maybe you’d been eaten by aliens.  You were late, and I– I kept hearing noises, so I started looking for you and I couldn’t find you _anywhere_.”

“That’s absurd.”

Now that the truth of situation was starting to sink in, Newt felt a little embarrassed with himself.  He laughed nervously.  “Probably, yeah.”

Hermann wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and Newt felt like a total idiot.  This wasn’t his first post-alien attack job, he wasn’t some newbie janitor.  He was usually a little better at holding his shit together than this.

“I appreciate your concern.”

“You mean you appreciate me screaming and hugging you.”

“It’s not as though those are rare events,” Hermann replied, a note of fondness in his voice.

Hermann held him for awhile, and Newt let him keep holding him for awhile.

“Are you still angry about the zombies?” Newt mumbled into Hermann’s jumpsuit.  It was a good thing Hermann was so fastidious, because he hadn’t bothered to check if there was any blood and goo on his shoulder before rubbing his face all over him.

“Yes.  Perhaps… more irritated than angry.”

“When we get outta here, I’m gonna make it up to you.”

Hermann patted him on the back gently.  “Then I suggest we get out of here.”

~

It was a beautiful day on Venus, not that they could see much of it from the space station.  The atmosphere looked nice, though.  It was clear enough to see the outlines of the colonies’ domes that dotted the surface.

“I can’t believe you’ve never golfed before, dude.”

“I never said I’d never golfed,” Hermann replied.  “I said I’d never _mini_ golfed.”  His gaze swept across the “alien” landscape with a critical eye.  “And the two are two very different activities.”

Newt pointed at Hermann with his golf club.  “Hey!  Don’t dis the golf the course!  This place was a labor of love!”

“I’m sure.”

“Did you know this is the _oldest_ miniature golf course on any space colony in the system?”

“Good lord, there’s more than one?”

Newt decided to ignore that, even though it was tempting to give Hermann a lecture on the history of the thirty-seven miniature golf courses dotting the Milky Way system alone.  

“Back when they first built this station, it only had, like, a bare-bones skeleton crew and there wasn’t a whole lot in the way of entertainment, right?  They were gonna be out here for _ten years_ and they were already going stir crazy within the first couple and strip poker and stuff like that just wasn’t cutting it.”

Hermann leaned on his golf club and squinted at him with what he was just going to go ahead and assume was interest.  

“So they sat down and talked it over and someone had the idea for a regular golf course, and someone else went, ‘Golf is boring, Bob,’ and someone else went, ‘ _Mini_ golf, though...’ and so they petitioned the Earth Coalition–”

“You are making this up,” the other man scoffed.

“I am not!  They had to get official permission because if they did it against regulations the whole station could be shut down, and it would’ve put the whole mission in jeopardy.”

Hermann stared at him.  “Go on.”

“Well, you know how people decades ago had all these weird ideas about what space was actually like and almost none of them were actually true?  Well, these guys thought it’d be funny to make the theme space, but not space-space, the dorky retro space like you see in those really old movies.  It’s _deliberately_ tacky.  It’s an homage!”

The other man looked pretty skeptical, but Newt wasn’t bullshitting.  He’d watched a documentary about it on the tv in the lunchroom one day between shifts.  Hell, he was surprised Hermann didn’t know all of this already, considering his hard-on for space documentaries and just space in general.

“The fact that it’s deliberately ridiculous instead of accidentally makes it better?”

“Uh, yeah?  Geez, Hermann, next you’re gonna tell me you never watch old movies because the science is unrealistic and the plots are ridiculous.”

“The science _is_ unrealistic and the plots _are_ ridiculous,” Hermann replied.  Then, smirking, he added, “But I do watch them.  I just don’t understand how a golf course holds the same appeal.”

“I dunno, maybe I’m just a romantic at heart.  I like the idea of the first mini-golf ever built in space being a totally cheese-fest dedicated to what everyone dreamed space would be like.  Y’know, bright and idealistic and _dorky_.  Pretty much the opposite of what it actually ended up being.  You can’t tell me you weren’t hoping for something better when you came out here.  You didn’t have big dreams of being a janitor in _space_ , right?”

“No,” the other man admitted, “but it’s not all bad.”

Newt snorted.  “Really?”

Hermann took a step towards him.  “The view of Venus from this golf course isn’t half-bad, and the company is… quite enjoyable.”

“Oh.”

Hermann had a look on his face that Newt wasn’t used to having directed at him, and sure there had been… signals, but there’d also been really intense arguments and they were friends, sure, but Newt had been half-convinced up until this point that anything else was just wishful thinking.  Now, though, he was pretty sure.  Well, mostly sure.  Kind of sure.

Hermann kissed him.

Newt went a little weak in the knees and had to concentrate really hard on not falling over, because he refused to be That Person who swooned in the middle of a mini-golf course when his partner kissed him.  That wasn’t the kind of thing a person could ever live down.

When Hermann finally broke away, Newt licked his lips and did his best to play it cool.  “If I’d known bringing you here was gonna affect you like this, I might’ve actually gone golfing two weeks ago.”


End file.
